Baku, Azerbaijan, July 5
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Completing semi-finished projects, remained from the former administration in Iran, will take 19 years, said Alireza Saleh, the deputy director of the Management and Planning Organization of Iran.
There were around 1300 semi-finished development projects in Iranian fiscal year 1391 (March 2012-March 2013), but the number of semi-finished projects surged to 2,900 in Iranian fiscal year 1392 (March 2013-March 2014), Iran's IRNA news agency quoted Saleh as saying on July 5.
To implement the projects, as much as 4,000 trillion rials (about $120 billion) is needed, he said, adding, "In fact, the former administration had allocated insufficient budget to many development plans."
The government has allocated budget to complete 246 development plans with overall progress of 70 percent, he noted.
Management and Planning Organization's Director Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said in April that Iran will spend 500 trillion rials (about $15 billion) for implementing development projects in the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 21.
State-run organizations will spend a total of 1,000 trillion rials (about $30 billion) in the current year in infrastructure projects nationwide, he noted.
In June 2014, Nobakht said the government needs $400 billion to complete semi-finished development projects across the country.
There are 2,906 projects semi-finished nationwide, Nobakht added.
"We will allocate the lion's share of the national development budget to complete the projects which are done by over 80 percent," he said.